Holiday providers who hike prices in school holidays should be fined

[Mystuff]

.....and not parents who are just victims of the system!!

Parents are easy targets, but the real problem IMO, is that it is ok for holiday providers to hike their prices.

So Aibu to think there is a way of fining these companies?

IMO family holidays are of huge benefit to children and it really angers me that parents should be forced to spend so much more than other people, or that kids should miss out on that quality time with their families.

Targeting parents is so wrong IMO, they are victims of the whole situation.

Well even though you're asking for an impossibility in an international free-market economy OP I agree with your sentiment that it would be good to achieve a better balance for those with children.

We were all children and most of us will have children at some point. Society is made up of children, even though the under 18s represent only a small proportion in a snapshot taken at any one time.

Taking steps to provide a better balance between work/education/family is something that would benefit us all.

Unfortunately as long as we live in a capitalist society, that won't ever happen as the pursuit of profit will always remain the ultimate goal. That's not 'evil' of course (since many of those profits can be used for philanthropic purposes), but I often feel the balance is wrong. I just find it sad that some children will never have a holiday or even a trip to our capital city because of its unaffordability while businesses with poor employment policies who pay staff NMW are raking in unprecedented profits and paying shareholders huge dividends.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha @ OP

I want a Mulberry handbag but can't afford it on my current salary. Isn't there an argument in the name of equality for forcing Mulberry to drop their prices?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, etc

Why? Supply and demand. Like everywhere. It happens with pretty much most things. The least wanted things are generally cheaper. Holidays are for those who pay for them. Currently, since adulthood, 11yrs back, we've had one holiday, a weekend for £130 for the three of us.

If I've understood you properly, you'd like to fine a company for not being focused more around your specific needs. Well I'm right behind this one, but where should we stop? Should we fine them for setting up shop in a place that's too hard for you to walk to? For not putting on special offers just for you because you're, well, so special?

but not loss of profit surely, just spreading prices more fairly through the year

Oh so you think people who can take their holidays during the school term time should be happy to pay a bit more to subsidise you when you want to holiday in August!

Speaking as someone who is in their last year of having to holiday during the expensive months, I would be pretty pissed off if I went to book a holiday in May or June next year and found out that after 13 or 14 years of high season prices I was now not able to take advantage of mid-season prices again.

Globally, holidays are a luxury. When you consider people in parts of Afghanistan who feel lucky simply to be alive, or people in some of the African nations who feel like millionaires for having the opportunity to go to school, it puts it all into perspective.

HOWEVER, it is all relative. Poverty in Afghanistan, for example is not poverty when compared to somewhere poorer. It's not a race to the bottom, it should be an aspiration to the top.

In the UK, a holiday is considered the norm. Therefore, if you don't have one (consistently, I'm not just talking about one year), you are denied the opportunities and experiences they bring. Travel broadens horizons. The links between educational achievement and socio-economic background is not because the poor are inherently thick, it's because money brings opportunity and experiences, all of which are educational and conducive to better educational attainment. Also, those whose childhoods are set outside the norm often feel outside mainstream society as adults, when that alienation can result in a rejection of mainstream norms and laws. Crime rises. If society doesn't care about you, why should you care about it?

A holiday may be a luxury, but deprivation has serious consequences.

You can still get abroad in the school holidays for a reasonable price if you are in a position to book flights as soon as they come out which is generally 11-12 months in advance. Likewise for accommodation Eurocamp etc is much cheaper if you book as early as possible as they have early booking discounts, or house swaps are an option.

I'll probably get flamed for this but I don't actually blame schools for enforcing the fines. There has to be some deterrent to taking children out of school in term - makes a teachers job which is hard enough already even harder and shows the children the true value that their parents put on education.

I wish they had the fines in Scotland. Someone in our office took his 3 DCs out of school for 3 weeks in September to go to Florida - their second trip in two years. His argument was they couldn't afford it in school holidays and even when I pointed out that it was possible to get reasonable flights by booking far in advance, he didn't like to commit himself that way. One of his DCs had just started senior school - imagine the impact of missing 3 weeks of Y1 not just in terms of schooling but also bonding with her new school mates, another was the same age as our DS - 7, DS struggles with the amount they learn each week, I can't imagine how he would begin to catch up if we decided to whisk him out of school for a holiday.

Yes you can argue that the fines hit the poorest hardest as they are the ones least able to afford school holiday prices ( or have the ability to pay for flights 11-12 months in advance). But you can also argue that the best way to lift people out of poverty is through education, so ensuring that children don't miss valuable chunks of this is important too.

Ha Ha Dahlen, please. Let's be realistic.

Whilst you may take your children to exotic far-flung places where they can absorb the culture and diversity of these places, most are buying all inclusive holidays in Europe where the kids get thrown into day clubs and the adults lay on sun loungers.

Missing out on a week in Tenerife is not deprivation even in the UK.

Yes YABU and completely misunderstanding the way the economics of this works. It is a choice whether to go on holiday!

If you did this then equally surely 'peak' and 'off-peak' train fares, leisure centre fees and numerous other things would have to change too.
I could say I am victimised as I work and therefore can only travel on peak-time trains and have to pay more than if I didn't work.
It isn't victimising parents with school-age children. It is pretty much just a fact of life and the way business has to work.

It sucks, the Government's policy of fining is frustrating. But at the end of the day it is to improve our children's educations. Not saying that I can't see the value and gains a child gets from a family holiday- but unfortunately it is life. There are ways to have a cheaper holiday in the school holidays e.g. booking far in advance or very last minute, shopping about for deals, holidaying in England etc etc.

Actually it's teachers and other people completely confined to school holiday times I feel for. Most people get, say, 13 - 18 years of being constrained. People who choose a career in teaching are doomed to decades of more expensive holidays chock full of kids.

It's annoying, but it's a free market economy. I look forward to being able to holiday in term time again when the DC are grown up, in the meantime you just get on with it really.

I agree flowery - we had some great off peak holidays pre DS and when he was pre-school age. To be honest most of the continent is now a no-no for us in the summer anyway as we all find extreme heat unpleasant.

I very much look forward to being able to holiday in June & September again and take advantage not only of lower prices and more spontaneity in booking, but also much more temperate climates.

it's me yuman rights innit?

i wanna olliday and i dun wanna pay more in august than when it's all fuckin cold an rainin like what it is now

Where demand exceeds supply there will always be people who can't have the thing in question.

I stayed in a communist holiday resort on the Black Sea in 1988. The opportunity of a couple of weeks in the sun wasn't something available to all Russians, East Germans, Czechs etc.. Our fellow guests were all people with privileged jobs or positions within the communist party. This seems no more or less fair than excluding people on the basis of peak season cost

Sebs going by the August prices of campsites all over Europe you're clearly wrong.

I resent the implication that those of us who wish to go on holiday with our children and can't afford it are all thick,common,can't speak properly and will only visit Costa del Dol.

My understanding is that hotels charge the holiday companies more at peak times. The companies are simply passing this on.

see I do fit her stereotype because, as a lone parents, kids clubs are a fucking god send plus my three like them - especially in the evening when there are films and chocolate involved

but then I also camp and all the other more acceptable shit

My 3 went to a fab one in France - we did all the acceptable stuff eg hiked,bike rides through the countryside,trying out the language/food,buying bread on their own,visiting quaint villages and local scenery etc,etc.

In the evening they did a French sweetie Bingo,a a French chocolate party and 1 afternoon they designed ways to protect eggs when dropped from a great height.It was fan bloody fantastic.

Prices aren't hiked during school holidays, they are discounted at other times.

That's great if you live near places with plenty to do that hasn't been exhausted already.

Sorry I think kids need experiences on a wider scale,the world is opening up and only having rich kids experience travel,foreign currency,places to aspire too,different cultures is utterly wrong,slams social mobility and is actually quite damaging.

Let's increase taxes on actual poor people so a slightly better off group of people can take their kids on exotic holidays!

Holiday companies don't hike prices they use good management for a good yield.
It is cheaper off peak and always has been. They are doing nothing wrong and offer cheaper prices during term time, not hike for school hols.
Would you fine everybody for maximising profits during peak times.
How about train companies? Hotels / B&Bs

You don't need to go anywhere very fancy to experience different cultures. Go to a Mela or a carnival.

All that would happen if you tried to fine holiday companies for this would be higher prices all year round. I don't like capitalism but it is the best system we have.